Tribes: Vengeance Single-Player Hands-On Impressions

It may be the third Tribes game in the series, but Tribes: Vengeance will be the first Tribes game to offer a single-player campaign and storyline. The first two Tribes games were multiplayer-only affairs that let you battle it out against other players, either individually or in teams, while wearing futuristic power armor. While the original Tribes was revolutionary and cutting-edge for its day, other first-person shooters have caught up and surpassed the series in terms of the huge scale of multiplayer battles. So for Tribes: Vengeance, developer Irrational felt it was important to provide a compelling single-player story to the game. We recently had the opportunity to play around with the single-player game while it's in development to see how the campaign is coming along.

Jet packs and spinfusors make for a lively game in the arena. Double-click on the video window for a full-screen view.

Irrational told us on earlier occasions that it wants to provide a deep, layered story, something akin to Neal Stephenson's popular novel Cryptonomicon. Indeed, from what we've seen so far, Tribes: Vengeance shifts between different characters and eras much in the same way Cryptonomicon does. The game starts with the main heroine, the Imperial princess Julia, pointing a gun at a defeated foe on a rainy night. We don't know much about the situation, such as who the man is and why she's pointing a gun at him, but he surprises Julia by handing her a fragment of a disc, which triggers the next sequence, which is a flashback to 20 years earlier.

The second sequence is set on an Imperial flagship, and you now get to play as Victoria, an Imperial princess on her way to her arranged marriage. It doesn't take long to figure out that Victoria is something of a spoiled brat, and it takes her older sister, Olivia, to talk her into going along with the marriage. However, the flagship is ambushed by the Phoenix tribe, which boards the ship. Victoria is cut off from her family, which means that you have to control her as you run around the ship, trying to find a way off. This entire sequence serves as a tutorial of sorts, and you'll quickly learn how to use the resource and equipment stations on the ship to outfit yourself in the three different types of power armor: light, medium, and heavy. You'll also have to maneuver up several tall shafts, which serves as a primer in using your jump jets. And, of course, you do get to outfit yourself with various weapons, including the iconic spinfusor (the disc-launching weapon of Tribes), the chaingun, the grenade launcher, and more.

One thing that we noticed about this early level is how well the architecture of the flagship matches that of the original Tribes games. Tribes: Vengeance takes place before the events of the original Tribes, so it could almost be thought of as a prequel. The environments themselves range from narrow hallways and corridors to huge, open areas, such as a throne room and what looks like a theater, both of which have balconies that you can jump to for a tactical advantage. While the environment isn't fully destructible, we did notice that you can destroy various objects in the game if you hammer on them enough. And in the climactic battle in the ship's cargo bay, it's important to take advantage of all the explosive barrels that litter the bay. The ship's safety officer must have been on vacation that week.

Many of the enemies in these early levels tend to be grunts in regular armor, with the occasional tribesman clad in the yellow, rounded power armor that the Phoenix tribe prefers. One handy tactic when you're up against ground troops is to use your jets to get to high ground and then pick them off where they can't hit you. However, that won't work as well against tribesmen in power armor, as they can follow you anywhere, so the best tactic is to simply hammer them with heavy weapons. While you can recharge your health at a resource station, it's important to note which enemies drop a health pack when they die and then race in and pick them up, as those health packs are the difference between life and having to reload an earlier save.

The next segment of the game takes place on a planet, where Victoria, after a certain sequence of events, ends up taking several tests to prove herself as a warrior. This section allows you to practice your skiing skills; indeed, there are a couple of places where you have to hit a button and then race to make it through a doorway before it closes again. In Tribes, skiing is when you use the small boot jets to hover an inch or two off the ground and then hit a slope. It's the fast way to get from a high place to a low place, and you can really build up speed. The important thing to note is that you have to hold down your space bar to ski, and use your jump jets (the right mouse button) to accelerate on uphill climbs. During these levels, Victoria will encounter both strange buglike creatures that attack her and the hostile Blood Eagle tribe, which leads to an intense valley chase, where you have to apply all your skiing skills to escape the enemy.

At this point, the game shifts back to Julia, 20 years later. It's arena combat time, and you have to lead the Imperial forces to victory against the Blood Eagles in the arena. This entire section plays out almost like a spectator sport, complete with play-by-play announcers; you and your team have to capture five markers in the stadium and hold them against counterattack by the Blood Eagles. The combat is fast-paced, and if you die, you can respawn back at your start point. This mode feels very similar to the multiplayer Tribes matches we've played in the past. Though we don't have much context as to why Julia is battling in the arena, we get the feeling that as the story progresses, all the pieces will slowly fall into place.

Tribes: Vengeance looks good, and it plays smoothly, which is important for a fast-paced game such as this. The rag-doll physics in particular are impressive, especially when you get to see a body twirl through the air. We were almost surprised at how quickly you can zip around in power armor. Meanwhile, the graphics engine, built on the Unreal engine, is good at rendering both big, outdoor levels and small, constrained indoor levels. We're definitely looking forward to trying out the finished game. Irrational is busy putting the finishing touches on the game, and barring any last-second delays, we can expect Tribes: Vengeance to ship this October.